Academic Background

Biography

After attaining a BA and MA in Psychology, I received a PhD in Public Health with specialisation in social and behavioural sciences. During my doctoral training, I was a research officer at the HIV Social, Behavioural, and Epidemiological Studies Unit at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (University of Toronto). I joined Wilfrid Laurier University in 2008 after spending a short time as a research assistant at St. Michael's Hospital analysing doctor-patient interactions. During my research leave in 2010, I served as a visiting scholar at the University of California at Santa Barbara in the Department of Sociology where I pursued research and training in conversation analysis.

Research Interests

Conversation Analysis – I am developing a conversation analytic research programme to understand the basic practices and methods for talk-in-interaction and the everyday production of social order.

Critical Public Health – I take a critical approach to public health research and practice. With an explicit commitment to anti-oppression, I interrogate health scholarship and interventions for the ways they may reinforce social inequalities.

Gay Men's Health – Through my collaborations with researchers across Canada, I have investigated health concerns relevant to gay men. These include sexual health, recreational substance use, harm reduction, and service provision.

Current Projects

Alternative Questions in Mundane and Institutional Interactions - I am collaborating with a
multi-disciplinary research team with members from departments of Psychology,
Population Health, Family Relation and Nutrition (at the University of Guelph)
and Medicine (at the University of Alberta) in a conversation analytic project on
alternative questions.In this
research, we have been examining the composition of alternative questions, the
ways they are responded to, and the actions they can achieve in mundane and
institutional interactions (and in particular, general care and palliative care sessions
between physician and patient, and 911 emergency calls).We have so far presented initial
findings at the International Conference on Conversation Analysis (2014).

Women Aging with HIV/AIDS - I am co-investigator on the (CIHR funded) Women, HIV, and Aging project. This study aims to bring to the fore the lived experiences of women living with HIV/AIDS. With a primary focus on multiple marginalised identities, the study seeks to understand how women aging with HIV/AIDS contend with social barriers to social services and health care.

Address Terms in Conversation - I am currently conducting conversation analytic research to identify the methodical use of address terms in interactions where recipiency and next-speakership are secured (e.g., 'I already said that, Dad!'). Previous research on the interactional uses of address terms in news interviews suggests that interviewees use address terms to disattend the overhearing audience and present answers as genuine and sincere (see Clayman, 2010). Yet, address terms are often deployed in mundane conversations where there are no such institutional contingencies. I have presented initial findings at the International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (2013) and International Pragmatics Conference (2013).